Petrol charges in France

emay

Have just got back from France and discovered a LARGE discrepancy between whats in my bank and whats available to withdraw, long call to bank later I discover nearly 300euros worth of charges:eek: at petrol stations where pay at pump was used (on top of actual petrol costs). Lady from bank thinks these are just to check there is money in account and it will get released again soon, but I've never heard of this before (not at 100 euros a time anyway:eek:).

Anyone else had this happen?

benjus

In cases where you present the card before the full bill is known, e.g. hiring a car, checking in to a hotel, they will usually pre-authorize a certain amount on your card in case you do a runner and cancel the card. They can then take any amount up to their pre-authorized limit. I guess the same thing happens when you use an automated petrol pump... when you put the card in it probably said something like "Take fuel, maximum €100" meaning that it had authorized €100 from your card. Sometimes it takes a while for these authorizations to drop from the card when they are no longer needed. I guess this is what is happening here.

I had a similar situation with car hire in Switzerland - they had taken the money, but the pre-authorization for 1500 Swiss Francs stayed on the card for several days afterwards.

Because of this it's generally a good idea to use a credit card rather than a debit card in such situations.